Wednesday, November 28, 2007

the muck of sickness is upon me!

my nose is caked with slime & gunk and my throat feels like i swallowed broken glass. i tried to walk the dog and felt as if i were going to fall over. by the end of the walk i felt a little better, though my skin felt rather prickly.

i am now embarking upon a shower to cleanse myself of two days of sweat and sickness and purify my very soul. somehow i feel that this will cure me. i've got some dr bronners peppermint soap in there, so i know that i shall be blessed.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

I am eBaying!

That's right... I have officially and most joyfully burst my "selling on eBay" cherry. It is probably equal parts financial desperation and need to clear out some shizzz that I don't use at all, and it is fun!

The first item I put up was this video and film editing book that I bought long ago when I thought I was going to go to an editing school, and then didn't. It was really expensive, and still is, as you can see here:

I have a bunch of really good editing books that I'm going to be putting up for bidding. For someone who is actually an editor, I would think they'd be a score, so tell your editing friends to jump on the bidding train! I held onto these books forever thinking that I would someday read them and spend long hours learning to edit. This afternoon, in the midst of a crappy cold, I came to the realization that I've got other fish to fry and different artistic strengths to focus on! Huzzah.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

250,000 Empty Bottles = One Man's Floating Mexican Island Paradise

If you can’t afford to buy your own tropical island paradise, why not build your own? The original (now destroyed) Spiral Island sported a two-story house, solar oven, self-composting toilet and multiple beaches. What now? Its creator is building a new recycled island paradise that he plans to float out to sea and travel around the world on!

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Peter is a fan from the UK that we met when we opened for Trainwreck at the Knitting Factory. He came to see Trainwreck, and left loving the Evangenitals. I was hoping he would really dig our 2nd album, especially after waiting for it to make the long journey across the Atlantic.

You can read his review on our album page at CDBaby.com, and hopefully, for those of you who have heard the new album, it will inspire you to write your own!

To be fair, I was totally doing an homage to Ween's "Painting the Town Brown" live album that night, which, if you don't know it, means that before and after every song I would say, "This song is ______, by the Evangenitals." Any serious Ween fan who listens to a lot of live albums and bootlegs would probably pick up on a number of shout-outs and nuances on my "stage antics" that are inspired by Deaner and Gener. Those boys are like icons in my mind that help me get through shows without having a panic attack. When in doubt, I simply pretend like I'm Gener prancing about in a Hawaiian shirt and his Las Vegas-worthy bravado helps me get through the night.

In the end, it seemed that the Ween Forum members, who are usually horrifically cutthroat, came out on the side of the Evangenitals... considering that Ween is a band who is known for the frequent homage, cover, rip off, and riffing on the styles of those who came before.

In other news, Ween's new album "La Cucaracha" has been on rotation in my iTunes with a horrific frequency lately. To be honest, I can't stop listening to it. That and Devendra Banhart's "Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon". The Devendra Banhart album is getting an average of 3 full plays per day, while Ween's La Cucaracha is coming in at an average of twice a day.

Banhart does have a bit of an advantage, though, as the album has a lot of super-mellow cuts which means I can keep playing "Smokey" late into the night in my apartment building without disturbing my neighbors. "With My Own Bare Hands" wouldn't go over so well at 3am... however, it has earned its place on my "if I were a stripper" playlist! It is filthy, fierce, and delightful. I love it.

Saturday, November 10, 2007

The Evangina show last night at TruXtop gallery was awesome. It's always a crazy and incredibly vulnerable experience when Lisa and I strip the Evangenitals act back to its barest bones and do the femme duet thing. Luckily it's also always a really beautiful and validating experience as well, as folks really respond to the sweet simplicity of our two voices and the minimal guitar accompaniment.

I was playing a new (to me) guitar, a really awesome junior Epiphone electric that super friend and super fan Albert gave me as a present. I am loving its sound. I mainly played bass lines and finger-picked on the tunes while Lisa covered the strumming and rhythm parts. It was super-intimate, super-tender, and ridiculously fun. We brought along our bin of play-along instruments and closed out with "Home"... which has now become a tradition since the Road to Oprah tour.

We did a few new tunes/covers... including the Ramones, Misfits, and some Bob Dylan. Good times! The art show was great, and I loved the gallery/space. Be sure to pay them a visit, check out the art, and support this new gallery. As for Evangina, I'm thinking that we need to get out on the town and play some more gigs. It's really good practice for us to put our asses on the line like that. :-)

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Please allow me to introduce myself...

So I was sitting at home starting to doodle on some music for this "History of Water" piece that I'm working on and I decide to try to play "WATER" on the guitar. I figure the best way to do this is to convert the word to Spanish (AGUA) and play the nearest chords to those letters (I substituted "D" for the "U", since a "D" is like a "U" that fell over against a wall)...

I ended up jamming for about an hour on what turned out to be a variant way of playing the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil"

MERE COINCIDENCE???? Or is there some deeper connection here betwixt the Devil and Spanish Water? More to be explored...

Monday, November 05, 2007

This is possibly the greatest music video ever...

This is Kate Flannery (Meredith on The Office) and Scot Robinson (my improv teacher at IO West, who was in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burghttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifundy) as "" - an awesome and slightly tragic lounge act duo that perform the first Saturday of every month at the Improv Olympic in Hollywood. I highly recommend the show.

If you like that video, their mash-up of Mandy/Brandy/Candy/Andy will knock your socks off!

Links I Love

I Am InterWeb

About Me

My name is Juli and I'm the lead singer of the Evangenitals. I am also the "June Carter" to the world's premier Johnny Cash tribute band Cash'd Out. I am a Vegan and I am pretty damn happy to be alive. I've got a MFA in Directing experimental theater and I'm working on my PhD in Philosophy. I'm an ordained minister of the ULC and I believe in the power of Now, and the power of Love, and the power of Music. I believe in the spiritual revolution and I'm already marching.
P.S.
I believe in you.
Seriously.
And I love you, too.